No stopping Doy wonder
JOCKEY READY TO TAKE NEXT STEP UP IN HISTORY BOOKS WITH CLASSIC WIN HOLLIE: YOU WORK YOUR WHOLE LIFE HOPING TO COME ACROSS A HORSE LIKE NASHWA
The Cazoo Oaks
HOLLIE DOYLE could be forgiven for treating career milestones like furlong poles.
Go past one, and another breezes into view.
But for all the feats on the CV of Britain’s most prolific female rider, Friday could take the 25-year-old to another level.
Doyle partners Nashwa in the Cazoo Oaks in a bid to become the first woman to lift a Classic – and an Epsom one at that.
Winning totals of the past three years – 116, 151 and 172 – cement not only her status as the most successful British jockey of her gender, but also her place among the weighing room’s elite.
Among them are two Group 1 triumphs – aboard Glen Shiel in the 2020 British Champions Sprint and on Trueshan in last year’s Goodwood Cup... but Classics are different. Doyle married in March and her husband Tom Marquand rode Galileo Chrome to victory in the St Leger two years ago.
She says: “It’s really hard – you’ve got a small group of jockeys when you get to Classic level. You’re looking at the same 10 jockeys riding in the same Classics.
“It’s hard to break into – you can’t get a spare ride in a Classic.”
Entry to the exclusive club comes only via a job with a powerful stable or owner.
Doyle’s application for membership comes via her contract, signed two summers ago, with Kuwaiti Imad
Al Sagar – half of the
Authorized partnership that gave
Frankie
Dettori his first
Derby in 2007.
“Imad was looking for a jockey and he approached me,” Doyle recalls. “I couldn’t say no. It was another stepping stone that I didn’t think hard about.”
Al Sagar’s Blue Diamond Stud bred Nashwa, the foal of a union between Listed winner Princess Loulou and the great Frankel.
Trained by John and Thady Gosden, Nashwa burst clear of her field in Newbury’s Fillies’ Trial 15 days ago to persuade her owner to seek Epsom glory rather than contest the French version, Chantilly’s Prix de Diane.
“She showed what we thought she was capable of,” says Doyle. “She settled
well, quickened up well. When I pressed the button, she responded automatically.
“I had hopes of her being an Oaks filly, and she passed every test at Newbury.”
Nashwa has to prove her stamina over an additional two furlongs at a mile and a half, but Doyle is confident: “On pedigree, she should stay – on the back of that run, why not?”
Ladbrokes quote the Newmarket-based bay at 4-1 to make history and improve by three places the best result by a woman jockey – her own fourth on Aidan O’Brien’s Interpretation in the 2021 St Leger.
Doyle has been an uneasy standard bearer for the female riders’ cause – “from my point of view, I’m just a jockey” – but admits: “I was probably a bit naive – from the outside looking in, people do look at those statistics.
“I do hope I can carve a little path and make girls realise that if you work hard and you’re good enough, ability does prevail in the end.
“Nashwa’s got a lot of class and it’s a great opportunity.
“This is what you get out of bed for, what you’ve worked all your life for – in the hope that you come across a horse like this. Luckily, we have.”